Entries tagged with brian greene

The author showed an engaging modesty when he appeared in an episode of The Big Bang Theory and was mocked by the Sheldon Cooper character for the sometimes left-field similes that are a feature of his writing style. They are certainly present here - cosmic cheese, wild partyers shaking buildings in San Francisco, the cosmological principle as a cup of tea and probability waves explained via New York landmarks all make an appearance - but they aren't annoying. The most irritating thing about this book is its title, which is a lie.

For this is a book about multiverses, and we have no direct evidence that any multiverse exists. So to say that it describes "the hidden reality" is wrong. To make matters worse, Greene doesn't just describe one possible multiverse but nine different possible formulations with varying degrees of likelihood. But then he is a physicist studying string theory, an area of research of which many scientists are suspicious because of its lack of testable hypotheses. A subject into which, to be fair, Greene goes in some detail. ( Read more... )